Gurpreet Singh Chhina, the president of Majha Kisan-Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, Gurdaspur, said they are taking nearly 100 tractors like this to Delhi. The adaptation of the trolley’s role was a bid to save money on transportation, farmer leaders said.
The trolley has donned yet another role in the ongoing farmers’ agitation. From turning into campers at protest sites, the trolleys are now being used to ferry tractors to the Delhi borders to join the protest parade on January 26.
As tractors started moving from Punjab’s Doaba and Majha towards Delhi on Saturday, a few tractors had trolleys attached to them that carried around two to three other tractors each. Gurpreet Singh Chhina, the president of Majha Kisan-Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, Gurdaspur, said they are taking nearly 100 tractors like this to Delhi. The adaptation of the trolley’s role was a bid to save money on transportation, farmer leaders said.
“One return trip of a tractor between Punjab and Delhi needs diesel costing between Rs 15,000 to 20,000 depending upon the district of the state you are travelling from. By using trolleys to transport tractors, we are able to transport 2-3 tractors at the cost of one,” said Gurpreet Singh Chhina, the president of Majha Kisan-Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, Gurdaspur, adding that in Delhi they will use these tractors in the parade and then bring back by loading them in the trolleys again.
“Saving of money is very crucial for us at this point of protest, which may continue for long, so we have decided to save our money like this,” he said.
The activists of Majha Kisan-Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, who started Saturday morning from Chhina village in Gurdaspur, will reach in Delhi by Sunday morning after a brief stay at Fatehgarh Sahib where they will pay obeisance at the gurudwara.
The president said that in their village a silo of Adani group is coming up and they have been sitting on dharna against it for the past 32 days as the village is located close to Gurdaspur-Pathankot highway.
In Doaba too, the movement of the tractors started Saturday.
General Secretary Bharti Kisan Union (BKU) Doaba, Satnam Singh Sahni that they are to take around 10,000 tractors for the parade and farmers are ferrying several on the trolleys.
“We do not know how long our struggle will continue and our savings are very important as running a tractor to Delhi is not a small things as one should have Rs 20,000 in the pocket just to reach in Delhi and come back from there on a tractor as the diesel prices are already so high,” said farmer Harinder Singh, who was carrying tractors of two fellow farmers in his tractor-trolley to Delhi while the expenditure of diesel consumption by his tractor will be shared by the three and it will cost them around Rs 5,000 to 7,000 each instead Rs 15,000 to 20,000 each.
“We are farmers and tractor is everything for us as it is car, home, and transportation mode everything,” said another farmer carrying tractors in his trolley.
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